$5776 Theodore Sturgeon 1918-1985 A MAJOR NEW MEDIEVAL FANTASY from Bluejay Books "Have you ever found yourself-and all her future readers—a treasure!" —Katherine Kurtz, author of Camber the Heretic "An exciting tale, well told, with a great deal of Originality." —POUI Anderson > THE NEW BIG NAME IN FANTASY A BLUEJAY INTERNATIONAL Bluejay Books Inc. James Frenkel, Publisher EDITION HARDCOVER $14.95 130 w. 42nd Street, Suite 514 Subscribe to the Bluejay Flyer New York, NY 10036 Distributed by St. Martin’s Press, inc. Write for a free catalog Dept. FS-5 Canadian distribution by Methuen of Canada Theodore Sturgeon 1918-1985 I Winner of Balrog and World Fantasy Awards, Hugo Finalist (Formerly Fantasy Newsletter) Founded by Paul C. Allen Volume 8, No. 5, Whole #79 May, 1985, ISSN 0747-234X Editor-in-Chief: Robert A. Collins Business & Accounts: Catherine Fischer Production Assistants Martin A. Schneider Carol Csomay Heather Manning Contributing Editors: FHtz Leiber Karl Edward Wagner Douglas E. Winter Steve oc Cornelia Theys Arnie Fenner Timothy Robert Sullivan Somtow Sucharitkul Published monthly by Florida Atlantic University through the Division of Con- tinuing Education, Melvin Hall, Dean; and with the cooperation of the Science Fiction Research Association, Donald M. Hassler, President. Single copy $2.75. Back issues, $2.50. Yearly subscriptions: $20 second class U. S. $25 second class Canada COLUMNS & FEATURES: $30 first class U.S., Canada $30 surface to Europe, Asia Theodore Sturgeon: A Biographical Sketch $45 airmail to Europe By BOB COLLINS page 6 $50 airmail to Asia Display advertising rates, based upon I Remember Ted current circulation of 3000 copies, esti - mated readership of 10,000, upon re- By JAMES GUNN page 7 quest. Wholesale rates to dealers upon request. Fantasy Review is also avail- Eudiche: Theodore Sturgeon able from F&SF Book Co., P.O. Box 415, By GARY K. WOLFE page 8 Staten Island, NY 10302, and Prairie News Agency, Div. Prairie Dist. Co. A New Disciple 2404 W. Hirsch, Chicago, IL 60622. By LAHNA DISKIN page 8 Publishers: Please send review copies, related correspondence, prepublication A Certain Slant of Eye: Worst Week of My Life announcements, cover proofs, advertising By S. P. SOMTOW page 9 and all specialty and fan press materials to Robert A. Collins at the address A Belated Interview below. By DEBRA L. McBRIDE page 10 Contents copyright ° 1984 Florida Atlan- tic University. Rights revert to authors REVIEW INDEX page 11 and artists after publication. Submissions are welcomed, and are hand- DEPARTMENTS: led with care, but we cannot be responsible for loss. Letters to the Feedback 34 Trade Books 30 magazine are considered submissions for Specialty & Fan Press 31 June Paperbacks 28 publication; we reserve the right to edit them. Opinions expressed by bylined arti- Events & Awards cles and columns do not reflect the views of the editors. Office of pub- lication at 500 N.W. 20th St., Boca We Are Hoaxed 11 McCarthy to Bantam 23 Raton, FL 33431. Phone (305) 393- Nebula Awards 13, 15 Balrog Awards 26 3 839. Second class postage paid at Year’s Best Fantasy 19 Hugo Nominees 32 Boca Raton, Florida and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: SEND COVER: Theodore Sturgeon, photo by Patti Perret; This page, artwork by ADDRESS CHANGES TO FANTASY Stephen Fabian for Reader's Guide to Theodore Sturgeon by Lahna REVIEW, COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES, FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY, BOCA Diskin, Starmont House, 1980. RATON, FL 33431. Printed By Review Financial Printers, Miami, FL. FANTASY REVIEW , May 1985 3 WHO WILL STAVE OFF THE LONG NIGHT WHEN DOMINIC FLANDRY NO LONGER CAN? INTRODUCING... MAY DIANA FLANDRY in the first new 55959-1 Polesotechnic Leagne/Terran 288 pp. $3.50 Empire novel in years! She'll do her old man proud! Distributed by Simon & Schuster Mass Merchandise Sales Company 1230 Avenue of the Americas • New York, N.Y. 10020 Hugo Award-winning author of The Blackcollar The Cobras were a guerilla force of cyborgs designed to die fighting in the war against the Trofts - their weapons surgically implanted, invisible yet incredibly powerful. They were a fighting force unmatched in human history. But power brings temptation and could all the Cobras be trusted to fight only for Earth? MAY • 55960-5 • 352 pp. • $2.95 Also coming in May from Baen Books: TO THE RESURRECTION STATION by Eleanor Arnason What secrets lay mouldering in the old mansion on New Hope? 55961-3 • 288 pp. • $2.95 WOLFUNG Distributed by by Gordon R. Dickson Simon & Schuster To the High-born of Throne World, Mass Merchandise Sales Company 1230 Avenue of the Americas James Keil was only a woffling... New York, N.Y. 10020 55962-1 • 256 pp. • $2.95 Theodore Sturgeon 1918-1 985 story, suddenly captured the imagination of fans at the Philadelphia Worldcon. There he met his second wife Mary Mair, a showgirl who sang the "title song" mm from his story. Sturgeon’s confidence mli P was restored. Although the marriage to Mary was brief and childless, through Jerome Stanton he soon met his third wife, Marion, with whom he lived for 18 years, producing Robin, Tandy, Noel and Timothy. EANWHILE, Prime Press issued M Sturgeon’s first hardcover antholo- gy, Without Sorcery (1948) and Horace Gold founded Galaxy, which was to be Sturgeon’s major market over the next decade. There he published "Baby Is Three," his most famous short story, which he expanded in 1953 to More Than Human, a blockbuster novel which got simultaneous hardcover and paperback distribution, beating Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man for the International Fantasy Award (the best then going) in 1954.. The earliest and best exploration of the "gestalt mind" concept, it has remained in print, a classroom classic, ever since, N Sunday, May 5, Theodore Hamilton was "God in a Garden" to Unknown, but During the 50s Sturgeon produced iSturgeon said goodbye to close "Ether Breather" in Astounding was a series of important novels (The 0friends, by telephone from his published earlier these sales Dreaming Jewels, The (1939); Cosmic Rape, apartment in Springfield, Oregon. His began his first highly productive period Venus Plus X, Some of Your Blood, lung condition (an effect of cystic ("Shottle Bop," "Microcosmic God," the last a vampire tale) and a host of fibrosis) had worsened, so that he could "Nightmare Island") during which he representative stories ("The Sex utter only a few syllables at a time. A used the pseudonymns "E. Hunter Waldo" Opposite," "The World Well-Lost," "The few hours later he entered the local and "E. Waldo Hunter" to allow multiple Silken Swift," "...And My Fear Is Great") hospital with terminal pneumonia. stories in the same issue of Astounding. as well as several story collections. In There was a gathering of the clan 1962, The Magazine of Fantasy A (Ted had five marriages and eight LUSHED with new success, in 1940 Science Fiction devoted a special issue children). On he Wednesday evening, May 8 married Dorothy Fillingame, his to him, and he was Guest of Honor at ("I think he was just waiting for all the F high school sweetheart, over the 20th Worldcon in Chicago, where he family to arrive," her parents’ said a neighbor) objections. On his honey- delivered a memorable speech outlining Sturgeon ceased his efforts to breathe at moon he wrote that early classic of tne his philosophy of love. 8:15 p.m., Pacific Coast time. He was macabre, "IT," which established his (By 1969, career conflict had 67. reputation as a stylist. But World War ended his third marriage in favor of a II was just around the corner: caught in union with Wina Golden, who bore his Ted was born the British Edward Hamilton West Indies, where he had last son, Andros. Then, a decade later, Waldo in Staten Island on gone to February 26, manage a resort hotel to with that union gone flat, he married his 1918; his parents were a Protestant supplement his writing, Sturgeon found surviving wife, Jayne.) Epicopalian couple, Edward and himself managing army properties Christine Waldo. The marriage was a instead. One of these was a tractor In retrospect, we can see that failure: Ted saw his father only once a lubrication center, where Sturgeon Sturgeon’s most important work had week at Sunday dinner. When he was learned to operate bulldozers and loved been done by 1962. Yet the power of nine, divorce brought him a stern and it. This stint inspired the only story he his mind and personality remained unsympathetic unim- Scottish stepfather, completed during the war, Killdozer paired though relatively unused. His employed as a teacher at Drexel College (published in Astounding, 1944, filmed infrequent contributions in later years in Philadelphia, who gave him little more for television in 1974). ("If All Men Were Brothers...," for Harlan than a new surname. Sturgeon’s long spell of writers’ Ellison’s Dangerous Visions, 1967; His earliest dream, of a career as block undermined his confidence, and "Slow Sculpture," winner of Hugo and a circus trapeze artist (he was a star Dorothy’s. She divorced him in 1945, Nebula Awards, 1970, "Why Dolphins gymnast in high school, and had been keeping the children (Colin, Patricia, Don’t Bite," written for Ellison’s Medea: promised an athletic scholarship at Cynthia), and he returned to New York Harlan's World, but first serialized in Temple University), was destroyed by a in a daze. Sharing an apartment with L. (>nni, 1980) are still among the very bout of rheumatic fever at 15 that left Jerome Stanton, assistant editor of finest stories in the genre. Yet, as E. F. him with an enlarged heart.